Here we collect and discuss the best DeFi, Blockchain and crypto-related OpSec researches and data terminals - contributions are welcome.

Feel free to submit a pull request, with anything from small fixes to translations, docs or tools you'd like to add.

Disclaimer: All information (tools, links, articles, text, images, etc.) is provided for educational purposes only! All information is also based on data from public sources. You are solely responsible for your actions, not the author ❗️

Note: OpSec is a term coming from the military, meaning operational security. It has been widely used to describe security precautions in various sensible activities, and more recently also in cryptocurrency management.

Translations:

OpSec SelfGuard RoadMap

Special Thanks:

AnonPlanet

| Special Notes:

Why do I need OpSec?

Take a close look at this picture (imgur link). Then think up: the world is full of bad people, scammers, hackers, competitors, extortionists, and your personal enemies. Read this research.

Study my blog!
Follow AnonPlanet!

This guide tries to account for all models, but focuses more on protecting against hackers, scammers, annoying fans and paparazzi, competitive espionage specialists (which can include police or other law enforcement officers who in theory can abuse their power), and so on. Your OpSec depends directly on those against whom you are up against. In other words, you must build your own OpSec wall on your own, as follows, you must navigate it flawlessly well. And it doesn't matter where it happens: on the Internet, in real life, and so on. Be one step ahead! May the power be with you!

Security Tips & Devices for Digital Nomads

Why does this guide focus primarily on advice for EVM-based blockchains and cryptocurrencies based on them?

No, this guide is appropriate for owners of all of the possible coins, developers, shadowy super-coders and digital nomads: you may own Bitcoin, DOGE, Sol, XMR, ETH, NFT - anything. I tried to cover all the bases, and if you follow the links, you'll see that there are already a ton of fantastic answers to all of your queries!

What do I need for a perfect OpSec?

Try not to enable such a psychological phenomenon as the tunnel effect, which refers us to the aviation psychology and flight psychology, to emerge and expand. When experienced pilots get overly focused on one item while disregarding or ignoring all other warnings, they have an accident. I hope you understood my guide correctly and did not allow this to happen. Be cautious, don't rush, and stay calm. When you are hungry, unwell, or defenseless, do not act on emotion. Do not confuse with a tunnel syndrome! Nonetheless, it is critical that you have no distractions and that you are healthy and well-fed.

This is all correct, but nothing stops you from doing a fork or ordering an independent audit of the tools you are going to use, does it? With all said, it all depends on what you are going to get in result and against whom you are acting.

Expand

Study Kerckhoffs's principle - The principle which holds that a cryptosystem should be secure, even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge. This concept is widely embraced by cryptographers, in contrast to security through obscurity, which is not.

Let’s say we deal with a Duress or Wasted tools. As such, it can be used wrong (e.g. weak password), or used to do bad things (e.g., exfiltrate intellectual property). On the opposite, we can just use Steganography and a small paper, without even touching the computer. Both attitudes have the right to exist, in my honest opinion! All of the above refers to the criticism of tools as such and their role in OpSec.

I highly recommend to purchase a hardware wallet directly from the manufacturer's website rather than online retailers like Amazon/eBay. It is also advised to use an alternative email address or a virtual office to protect your personal information in case of a data leak. I also don’t like trusting hardware. Therefore, we all should have physical ciphers! Once again, study Steganography!

Why is this guide so big?

Well, regarding big lists. Japan was the first country to invent the work that we do now in the form of SoKs or Awesome GitHub lists! If anyone is still around, browsers used to be sort of a table or database of websites, many of which were quite… uninspiring.

This manual is the culmination of years of work by security professionals. Consider this guidebook to be a compilation of advice and routes.

«Antenna-websites» were created at that time. There, their authors gathered a variety of resources that were related by a common subject to make someone’s life easier! In some ways, the creators of Awesome Lists and start.me continue this idea now. And it's fantastically amazing!

Why does this guide have many authors?

Last but not least, everything you do is based on the outcomes you need to achieve! You should be able to select reliable and vetted sources instead of using all the tools and links. Through given routes, you ought to be able to construct your own journey! Following that, I will tell you about the ways that I deem safe and recommend to my clients! Safety professionals have spent decades developing this manual, sharing their expertise in every word. Once again, consider this guidebook to be a compilation of advice and routes.

Remember, you must manage your OpSec wall and literally take it through "be like water", tending not to overdo it! You construct your own security wall, which you must guard, repair, and develop, exactly like a real wall. Visit: this article!

Because OpSec is fundamentally based on fear, it effectively treats all people equally, regardless of their political or religious preferences. The following 25 rules are comparable to the rally racers' safety regulations in that they are both "written in blood".

The most important thing to understand here is the path of the cyber attack – its vector. Let's take a closer look at various problems associated with OpSec and its implementation to modern life!

Problem 1

Use a secure email provider. Also use trusted VPN like Mullvad or ProtonVPN (better - selfhost it). E2E (end-to-end) encryption is only as secure as the service you are sending the email to.

For example, if a Protonmail user sends an email to a Gmail user, the email is encrypted with TLS, but Google can still read and hand over any data that passes through their server. E2E can be re-established by using features such as the password-protected email feature from Protonmail.

Don't forget that the VDS/RDP + VM combination can replace all of this, but it is not available to everyone. If you know how to do it correctly - choose this way. Check out this article as well.

On the opposite:

Don’t use 3rd party VPN, rent a VPS and bootstrap open source VPN server!

Expand

Check out:

Use dedicated email address for each account, or use an alias eg. chortly534524twitter@gmail , if it leaks it will be isolated to the account!

You can also use something like private addresses feature from DuckDuckGo or simplelogin.io.

Expand

Problem 2

Use different emails and different strong passwords. Never reuse passwords, especially for accounts with personally identifiable and sensitive information (e.g. Facebook, Gmail, AppleID, Twitter, banks/payments, crypto accounts).

Use passwords that are at least 8 characters in length, but a minimum of 12 is generally recommended for memorization. Along with that, if using memorization, ensure that a minimum complexity requirement is met: which means having an uppercase character, a lowercase character, a digit, and a non-alphabetic character.

Expand

For a perfect-level privacy, always generate complex passwords and write them down on a notebook. It takes time but saves headache. Somewhere along the line, the 'stop writing passwords on sticky notes' narrative got misinterpreted as 'never write them down'. There's nuance to it!

Using a string of unrelated words while still meeting the dictionary requirement makes it easy to have an extremely secure password while still being able to remember it. If fully relying on a password manager, a password of 20+ characters in length that is randomly generated can be used.

Expand